In these words our Lord describes two sorts of persons those who cannot yet bear the truth, and those who, through the guiding of the Spirit, are led into all truth. They who could not yet bear it were, we see, our Lord's disciples; they who had followed Him from the beginning of His ministry; they, of whom He had just before said, that they were all clean, except Judas, who betrayed Him. Still, He had much to say which they could not yet bear, but which they should be able to bear and to understand, when the Spirit of truth should come and lead them into all truth. These words were applicable to our Lord's twelve first disciples, and they are much more applicable to many of us. There are many in every age who cannot bear all that Christ has to say unto them, because they are not yet led by the Spirit, and neither their heart nor their understanding can receive the perfect truth.
I. If we want a more ancient example of this, the whole history of the Old Testament will furnish one. The hardness of the hearts of the Israelites was the reason why they were allowed some things, which in a riper state of knowledge men would shrink from; but there are many who are in this respect Israelites among us, there are many who are yet living under the law, and who cannot yet understand or feel the voice of the Spirit. Christ has many things to say unto them, but they cannot bear them now.
II. The whole of the Gospel message is a comfort to those who feel themselves sinners; to those whose consciences trouble them, and who fear the anger of God and wish to flee from it. It is a medicine for the sick, which they who do not feel themselves sick, cannot be persuaded to care for. It is vain to talk to men of Christ, till they feel their want of Him; it is idle to speak to them of the mercy of their redemption, till they have some sense of the danger from which they have been redeemed. The law is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ; but Christ will never be sought by those who have never learned to fear the law.
T. Arnold, Sermons,vol. ii., p. 64.
The Purposed Incompleteness of Christ's Teaching
I. These words show, first of all, that our Lord's own teaching during His sojourn upon this earth, did not embrace all necessary Christian doctrine. A man, then, who should think himself a good Christian for keeping only to the words of Christ, would deceive himself. He could not keep only to the words of Christ if he really kept to all the words of Christ, for among the words of Christ is the saying in the text which states as clearly as possible that over and above Christ's actual teaching there were truths to be taught in His name and by His direct authority, truths which, as coming from Him, although through others, Christians were to receive and believe.
II. Why was our Lord's teaching thus incomplete incomplete according to His own will and announcement? Why did He not Himself teach all that could properly be called Christian doctrine? The answer is that the same motive which led Him to teach men at all, led Him to impose these limits, these restraints, these delays, upon His process of teaching. He taught men in their ignorance because He loved them too well to leave them in it. He taught men gradually, and as they were able to bear the strong light of truth, because He loved them too well to shock or blind them by a sudden blaze of that truth, for which in its fulness they were as yet unprepared. The full understanding of who He was and what He came to do was preceded by a twilight. That twilight was itself His own work, and it brightened more and more, moment by moment, towards the day. He rose amidst the mists of imperfect apprehension of misapprehensions as to who and what He was; and not until He was high in the heavens did He permit the full truth to break upon the intelligence of the world. In this He was true to God's providential action throughout human history. All along the course of the ages God has taught men gradually. The old Jewish Scriptures were a long series of revelations the patriarchal first, then the Mosaic, then the prophetical, each being a great advance on its predecessor, and all leading up to the final and complete revelation of God in Christ.
H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit,No. 581. (See also Easter Sermons,vol. ii., p. 279.)
References: John 16:12; John 16:13. E. Bickersteth, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xiv., p. 225.John 16:12-14. Preacher's Monthly,vol. v., p. 208. John 16:12-15. W. Roberts, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xi., p. 237.